


Home for a Wizard

by bobbiewickham



Category: In The Forest of Serre - McKillip
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gyre and Sidonie talk after facing Brume.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for a Wizard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moemachina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/gifts).



When they arrived at the palace, they waited. Ronan went to his chamber with his mother. Calandra was unwilling to let her son out of her sight.

Sidonie went to her own stone room with Gyre and her attendants. Gyre, at first not planning to return to the castle, decided it was best. He needed to see for himself that all was well with Dacia's princess before leaving.

Ferus, fresh-returned from his battle against the monster haunting Serre, would wish to rage at them soon enough. He would shout and curse them for haring off after Brume. Before the royal command brought them to face the ogre, they would seize what peace and calm they could.

In her grim chamber, Sidonie threw a rueful glance at Gyre. "I thought nothing would ever scare me again after Brume," she said.

"But Ferus does?"

"Yes," she said, her voice level and quiet. "He does." Her eyes glittered at him in the dull gleam of the candlelight, strikingly bold compared to the pallor of her face. She still wore her plain garments and her thick-soled boots, though she had returned her colorful scarf to her attendant.

From Ronan's chamber, they could hear the king's coarse shouts. The reckoning had begun. "I wonder if he will obey Brume's demand," Sidonie said. "I wonder how she'll punish him if he doesn't. When he doesn't."

Gyre frowned. "I cannot leave you at his mercy." He had not wished to marry her, not truly. He had wanted Serre, with its treachery and its sorcery and its strange, haunting tales. But he felt a powerful fondness for this brave, bright young princess. The thought of leaving one so vivid in this overgrown tomb was insufferable to Gyre. It was like caging the firebird.

"It will be well." Sidonie managed a dim smile. "I have Ronan, now. We can be friends, and perhaps in time I will come to love him. I won't be alone in the ogre's castle."

"But the ogre can torment you both," Gyre said. "He tormented Ronan and Queen Calandra for years, though they had each other for comfort. And he expects you to have the powers of Dacia. Trapped in a jewel, in a box that only your voice will open. Don't you remember?" He paced a length of the chamber, coming back to stand in a yellow patch of light. "I have been a monster, and I have battled a monster. I cannot leave you to one." He spoke wearily, yet with a certain resolve. His path seemed clear to him now, as it had not since he entered the forests of Serre. His life in the last days had been full of passion and terror, but little clarity.

"And yet," Sidonie said, "you could steal Ronan's life."

Gyre did not flinch. "Yes," he said. "I could. I wanted Serre. I wanted…" How could he explain to this Princess of Dacia what he wanted?

"You wanted a kingdom, and a home, and a wife. And—the sorcery."

"I did not want it truly. Ronan was right." He looked at the stone floor, and then looked at Sidonie. "I would not have harmed you. Or allowed anyone else to."

Her eyes, darkened by the room's thick velvety shadows, seemed to consider him dispassionately. He felt curiosity from her, and blame, and fear, and some trace of affection. For that last he was thankful. "I believe that now," Sidonie said at last.

Gyre warmed to that, and for a moment the two were quiet. The soft chatter from Auri and the other attendants filled the room.

Then Gyre spoke: "Do you remember what I told you, about the difference between magic and sorcery?"

"Magic is true," Sidonie said. "Sorcery can deceive."

"Yes," Gyre said. "Ferus has a knack for sorcery. But magic eludes him. As does any deeper understanding of sorcery. He loves this land, but it is a blind love, for he cannot know it."

"Calandra knows it," Sidonie said.

"Yes, but she hoards her knowledge from her husband, pulling it out when it is useful to her. He has not earned the right to share it." He paused, then spat out tersely: "I will not see you become Calandra."

"I am not marrying Ferus." The Princess drew herself up. "Calandra didn't become so drawn and faded because Ferus is frightening. It was because he has no heart, and yet she had to marry him."

Gyre looked at her. He remembered her terror and her courage in Brume's cottage of bones, and he thought that she could face Ferus, and he thought it monstrously unfair that she should have to.

"You have a knack for magic," Gyre said. "I know," he forestalled her, seeing she was ready to argue, "you have none of your grandfather's powers. Or so you think, and you may well be right. You cannot do magic. But—I think you can recognize it. You can see into the heart of things, Princess. Better than I can. You've shown that of late. I can teach you to hone that talent. Then you need not fear Ferus's sorcery."

Sidonie frowned. "Why not?"

"If you know the truth, you need not fear lies." Gyre felt confusion from her. She would understand more with time. "He cannot hurt you in any case," he murmured. "He needs you, to produce an heir for his son. And I will cook up some story to explain your lost powers."

They both felt it then, the sorcerous wave of Ferus's impotent anger and thwarted will washing over the castle. Sidonie shuddered like a slender birch in a stormy gale, but held herself straight. Her attendants clutched at each other, too frightened to make a sound.

When it passed, Gyre smiled at her. "You see?" he said. "You faced Brume. You need not fear Ferus. And I will help you grow stronger still."

Sidonie looked at him for a long moment before saying, "You cannot. The king knows you were the false Ronan. Do you imagine he will allow you to stay?"

Gyre laughed. "Do you imagine he can stop me?"

"He can't hurt you," Sidonie said. "Nor me, I suppose. But my people, my attendants—he's used them to hurt me before. He used them as bait for Brume. I won't see that happen again. And you can't protect them all." The Princess from Dacia, who left her home and family for an ogre's castle to save her country from conquest, looked him squarely in the eye. For a moment she seemed as lovely to Gyre as she had on the day of the Not-Wedding. "I can stand up to Ferus, but I won't needlessly provoke him. And I won't live in fear of him, either. You needn't worry. I can invent a story to explain my lost powers myself. Besides," she said, with a sudden uncanny smile he had never seen on her face before, "I suspect Brume will chasten him before long." She cocked her head like a bird in the direction of Ronan's chamber. "He has been silent for five whole minutes. And he hasn't come charging up here yet."

"Perhaps he's inventing some new way to torment his wife and son."

"Or perhaps he is learning a lesson," Sidonie replied. "Anyway," she said, tilting her chin up, "I won't be crippled by my fear of him. I imagine he'll scare me, but I won't let it stop me. " Gyre looked at her and thought perhaps the firebird couldn't be caged, not truly. "You should leave, Gyre. Go home. Go back to Dacia. Talk to Unciel."

Unciel. Gyre suddenly longed to speak with the old wizard. To beg his forgiveness, yes, but mostly just to speak with him. He was sick to the heart of Serre. Yet part of him resisted leaving. "You may need a wizard."

"I don't."

"You don't know that. Who knows what the Queen of Serre will some day require? Here," he said, fumbling for a hidden pocket. He pulled out a piece of silver and waved a hand over it, turning it into a mirror. "Take this. You can use it to call me, if you're ever in need."

Sidonie took it. She held it in both hands, looking from it to Gyre. The wizard felt her hesitation, and her longing. "What is it?" he asked. "Tell me, and if I can, I will do it for you."

"Dacia," she whispered, suddenly hoarse. "Show me Dacia. You can do that, can't you? Show me what I've saved."

He could do that. It was tricky and subtle magic, with a touch of sorcery, but well within Gyre's powers. He sent his memory back to Dacia to pull the threads of its life, so he could weave Dacia around her. She was caught in the tapestry, blissfully lost. She saw the bustle of the markets and the peace of Unciel's cottage. She feasted her eyes on the darks and brights and pastels of the paintings and the cool marble dignity of the sculptures. She saw the scholarly gloom of the library, livened only by the pallid glimmer of the illuminations. She saw Lady Tassel's sharp eyes, and the scribe Euan's awkward gaze. She saw old playmates and favorite haunts. And she felt her father's embrace, and heard her sisters' peals of laughter. Awash in their love, she felt herself begin to laugh as well.

When it was over, her eyes glistened with tears, but she still bore a smile on her lips. "Thank you." With a sudden boldness he took her hand. "Go home for me, Gyre. Go to Dacia, and see what I won't truly see again for years."

Foot-steps echoed up the hallway outside the room, too heavy to be a woman's. Ferus, or Ronan, or both. "I will, Princess." He loved Dacia almost as well as she, now that he had seen how she saw it. And he had to speak with Unciel. With one last press of her hand, Gyre transformed into a hawk and flew into the dark of the night, back to Dacia.


End file.
